History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, and incidentially historical collection pertaining to border warfare and the early settlement of the adjacent portion of the Ohio Valley, Part 23

Author: Caldwell, J. A. (John Alexander) 1n; Newton, J. H., ed; Ohio Genealogical Society. 1n
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Wheeling, W. Va. : Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 728

USA > Ohio > Jefferson County > History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, and incidentially historical collection pertaining to border warfare and the early settlement of the adjacent portion of the Ohio Valley > Part 23
USA > Ohio > Belmont County > History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, and incidentially historical collection pertaining to border warfare and the early settlement of the adjacent portion of the Ohio Valley > Part 23

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The camp of Indians, above referred to as "Logan's Camp," was situated close to the mouth of Yellow creek and about 30 miles above Wheeling. Directly opposite was the cabin of Joshua Baker, who sold rum to the Indians, and who conse- quently had frequent visits from them. Although this encamp- ment had existed here a considerable time, the neighboring whites do not seem to have felt any apprehension of danger from their close proximity. On the contrary, they were known to have their squaws and families with them, and to be simply a hunting camp. The report of Cresap's attack on the two parties of Indians in the neighborhood of Wheeling, having reached Baker's, may have induced the belief, as was subse- quently claimed, that the Indians at Yellow creek would im- mediately begin hostilities in reprisal. Under this pretext Daniel Greathouse and his brothers gathered a party of about twenty men to attack the Indian encampment and capture their plunder. Unwilling to take the risk of an open attack upon them, he determined to accomplish by stratagem what might otherwise prove a disastrous enterprise. Accordingly, the evening before the meditated attack, he visited their camp, in the guise of friendship, and, while ascertaining their num- bers and defences, invited them with apparent hospitality to visit him at Baker's, across the river.

On his return, he reported the camp as too strong for an open attack, and directed Baker, when the Indians should come over whom he had decoved, to supply them all the rum they wanted, and get as many of them drunk as he could.

Early in the morning of the 30th of April, a canoe load of Indians, consisting of eight persons, came over- three squaws, a child, and four unarmed men, one of whom was the brother of Logan, the Mingo chief.

Going into Baker's cabin, he offered them rum, which they drank and became excessively drunk- except two men, one of whom was Logan's brother, and one woman, his sister. These refused taking any liquor. No whites, except Baker and two companions, appeared in the cabin. During the visit, it is said by John Sappington, Logan's brother took down a hat and coat belonging to Baker's brother-in-law, put them on, and strutted about, using offensive language to the white man- Sappington. Whereupon, becoming irritated, he siezed his gun and shot the Indian as he went out the door. The balance of the men, who, up to this time, remained hidden, now sallied forth, and poured in a distructive fire, slaughtering most of the party of drunken and unresisting savages. "The woman at- tempted to escape by flight, but was also shot down; she lived long enough however, to beg mercy for her babe, telling them it was akin to themselves."t

Immediately on the firing, two canoes of Indians hurried across the river. They were received by the infuriated whites, who were ranged along the river bank, and concealed by the undergrowth, with a deadly fire which killed two Indians in the first canoe. The other canoe turned and fled. After this two other canoes, containing eighteen warriors, armed for the conflict, came over to avenge their fellows. Cautiously ap- proaching the shore they attempted to land below Baker's cabin. The movements of the Rangers, however, were too quiek for them and they were driven off with the loss of one man. They returned the fire of the whites but without effect. The Indian loss was ten killed and scalped by these miscreants including the mother, sister and brother of Logan.

*Brantz Mayer in Logan and Cresap. See also letter of G. R. Clark. +Doddridge.

"General George Rogers Clarke's statement as quoted in Mayer's Logan and Cresap. See also Appendix.

¡Statement of Judge Jolly, appendix B.

HISTORY OF BELMONT AND JEFFERSON COUNTIES, OHIO.

This horrible and bloody massacre cast an indelible stain of infamy upon the name of every person in any way connected with it. Cotemporary letters, and chronieles of this event, speak of it as a shameless, and atrocious murder, and as the in- citing eause of the terrible war which followed, accompanied with all those horrid cruelties which savage ferocity could invent.

Well knowing the consequences which would follow from this barbarous act when the tidings of it should reach the Indian towns and settlements, the miscreants who had perpetrated it immediately decamped and started for the interior settlements. Judge Jolly states that they "came to Catfish eamp (now Wash- ington, Pa.,) on the evening of the next day, where they tarried until the day following. I very well recolleet my mother feed- ing and dressing the babe; ehirruping to the little innocent and its smiling. However they took it away and talked of sending it to its supposed father, Col. George Gibson, of Carlisle, Pa., who was then, and had been for many years, a trader among the Indians."*

A letter published at Philadelphia, May 23, 1774, gives an account of an interview with the Greathouse party on the 3d of May, only three days subsequent to the massaere, from which the following is an extract: "Capt. Crawford and Mr. Neville, of Virginia, from Pittsburgh, informed us that on the 3d inst., on their way there, they met a number of inhabitants moving off their places, and with them a party who produced several Indian scalps, and said they got them as follows"-describing the affair at Baker's Bottom: "Among the unfortunate sufferers was an Indian woman, wife of a white man, one of the traders; and she had an infant at her breast, which these inhuman butchers providentially spared, and took with them. Mr. Neville asked the man who had the infant if he was not near enough to have taken its mother prisoner without killing her? He replied that he was about six feet from her when he shot her exactly in the forehead, and cut the hoppase with which the child's cradle hung at her back; and he thought to have knocked out its brains, but remorse prevented him on seeing the child fall with its mother. This party further informed them that after they had killed these Indians they ran off with their families, and that they thought the whole country was fled, as Cresap, who was the perpetrator of the first offense, was then also on his way to Redstone."t

The correspondence of William and Valentine Crawford with General Washington, recently published from the Washington papers on file in the Department of State, furnishes a graphic picture of the wide-spread consternation and panic among the border settlers, which immediately followed these occurrences. They are a valuable contribution to the history of these events, gathered, as they were, from immediate aetors in the tragedy, and within a few days after its oceurrence, and they conclu- sively settle all questions of date and responsibility concerning the Yellow creek massacre.

The Crawfords were the gentlemen to whom Washington had entrusted the survey and sale of his western lands, and they kept him fully advised of everything that happened on the frontier within their knowledge. Subsequently William Craw- ford became the unfortunate commander of the ill-fated expedi- tion against the Indians of Upper Sandusky, in 1782, perishing horribly amid flames and tortures, such as only savage malig- nity and barbarity eould devise.

The correspondence referred to is as follows :

WILLIAM CRAWFORD TO WASHINGTON.

MAY, 8, 1774.

"SIR : * * * * *

" I suppose by this time various reports have reached you. I have given myself some trouble to acquaint myself with the truth of matters ; but there are some doubts remaining as to certain facts ; however, I will give you the best account I can.

The surveyors that went down the Kanawha, as report goes, were stopped by the Shawanese Indians, upon which some of the white people attacked some Indians and killed several, took thirty horse-loads of skins near the mouth of Scioto; on which news and expecting an Indian war, Mr. Cresap and some other people fell on some other Indians at the mouth of Pipe creek, killed three and scalped them. Daniel Greathouse and some others fell on some at the mouth of Yellow ereek and killed and scalped ten, and took one child about two months old, which is now at my house. I have taken the child from a

woman it had been given to. Our inhabitants are much alarmed, many hundreds having gone over the mountain, and the whole country evacuated as far as the Monongahela ; and many on this side of the river are gone over the mountain. In short, a war is every moment expected. We have a council now with the Indians. What will be the event I do not know. "I am now setting out for Fort Pitt at the head of one hun- dred men. Many others are to meet me there and at Wheeling, where we shall wait the motions of the Indians and shall act accordingly.' *

VALENTINE CRAWFORD TO WASHINGTON.

"JACOB'S CREEK, May 7, 1774.

"DEAR SIR: I am sorry to inform you the Indians have stopped all the gentlemen from going down the river. In the first place, they killed one Murphy, a trader, and wounded another; then robbed their canoes. This alarmed the gentle- men very much; and Major Cresap took a party of men and waylaid some Indians in their canoes, who were going down the river, and shot two of them and scalped them. He also raised a party, took canoes and followed some Indians from Wheeling down to the Little Kanawha; when, coming up with them, he killed three and wounded several. The Indians wounded three of his men, only one of whom is dead; he was shot through, while the others were but slightly wounded. On Saturday last, about 12 o'clock, one Greathouse and about twen- ty men fell on a party of Indians at the mouth of Yellow creek, and killed ten of them. They brought away one child a prisoner, which is now at iny brother William Crawford's."t *

x *

There was formerly some doubt about the exact date of these occurrences, John Sappington stating it from memory many years after the event, dates it on the 24th of May; Benj. Tom- linson says the 3d or 4th of May, while Col. Ebenezer Zane placed it at the last of April. These discrepancies are now cleared away, and the exact date fixed beyond a peradventure by the letter of Valentine Crawford, as Saturday, April 30th, 1774. There is, however, an error of fact in Valentine Craw- ford's letter, which it may be well to note here. Writing fron rumor about Cresap's operations, he fixes one of his actions at Little Kanawha. It should have been Pipe creek or Captina.

We append below Col. Zane's statement of these transactions made in reply to inquiries of Hon. John Brown, one of the Senators in Congress from Kentucky:

In addition to the murders committed upon the Indians in this immediate vicinity, other outrages were perpetrated further up and down the river. A man named Jolin Ryan killed three Indians, on the Ohio, Monongahela and Cheat rivers. Several were killed at South Branch, while on a friend- ly visit to that country. This was done by two associates, Henry Judah and Nicholas Harpold. The instances of injus- tice done to these children of the forest, were numerous. Among many such at that time, was also the murder of Bald Eagle, an Indian of notoriety, not only among his own nation, but also with the inhabitants of the frontier, with whom he was in the habit of associating and hunting. In one of his visits among them, he was discovered alone and murdered, solely to gratify a most wanton thirst for Indian blood. After the commission of this most outrageous enormity, he was scated in the stern of a canoc, and with a piece of corn cake thrust into his mouth, set afloat on the Monongahela. In this situation he was seen de- scending the river by several, who supposed him to be as usual, returning from a friendly hunt with the whites in the upper settlements, and who expressed some astonishment that he did not stop to sce them. The canoe floating near to the shore, be- low the mouth of George's creek, was observed by a Mrs. Proy- ince, who had it brought to the bank, and the friendly, but un- fortunate old Indian, decently buried.

Not long after the murder of Bald Eagle, another outrage of a similar nature was committed on a peaceful Indian, in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, for which the person was apprehended and taken to Winchester for trial. But the fury of the popu- lace did not suffer him to remain there awaiting that event. The prison doors were forced, the irons knocked off and he again set at liberty.

But the three murders committed upon the Indians above Wheeling, and at Captina and Yellow creek, following so quick- ly in succession, seem to have been the aets which, more than

*Statement of Judge Jolly, Appendix B. +See Appendix A.

*Washington-Crawford Letters, edited by C. W. Butterfield, Esq. +Ibid.

HISTORY OF BELMONT AND JEFFERSON COUNTIES, OHIO.

all others, goaded the savages to take up the hatchet and pre- cipitate the war for revenge which followed. The whole family of the celebrated, but unfortunate Logan, were comprehended in these massacres, and from the firm and sincere friend of the whites, which he had always been, and the efficient advocate of peace, he was suddenly changed by these lawless acts, into an active, daring, and most desperate enemy.

While there ean be little doubt that an occasional outrage was committed by Indians along the border prior to the events just narrated,* and that they viewed with suspicion and dis- trust the large immigration to the new lands in Kentucky, then just opening up for settlement, yet the current opinion of those contemporary with, and having full knowledge of these occurrences, as is witnessed by their correspondenee and pub- lished statements, strongly indicates that peaceable and friendly relations would have been maintained and the terrible results of the ensuing war avoided, but for these wanton murders by Greathouse and others.

Sueh share of the blame as might attach to Cresap for the killing of the two parties near Wheeling, he always claimed belonged to his superior officer, Dr. Connelly, whose circular letter directed or authorized his conduct in the matter. Among the denunciations against Connelly, published by an indigna- tion meeting held at Pittsburgh June 25, 1774, one specifies this very act.

"The distressed inhabitants of this place have just eause to charge their present calamity and dread of an Indian war entirely to the tyrannical and unprecedented conduct of Doctor John Connelly. * * *

"2d. Michael Cresap, in vindication of his own conduct, alleges that it was in consequence of a eircular letter said Con- nelly direeted to the inhabitants on the Ohio that he murdered the Indians," etc .; * * * * *

So strongly were the border people impressed with the cer- tainty of retaliation by the Indians, and that a merciless and cruel warfare would soon be waged upon them, that they imme- diately and spontaneously abandoned their homes. The trails literally swarmed with settlers returning East to the protection of their fortifications. Crawford writes to Washington on the 6th of May, 1774, "I am sorry to inform you that the disturb- ance between the white people and the Indians has prevented * my going down the river," etc. *

* "It has almost ruined all the settlers." * * "There were more than one thousand people crossed the Monongahela in one day."t

Even flocks and herds were sent off, and, on the 13th May, Crawford writes, "We this day received some cows from Wheel- ing."$

An attempt was made to pacify the Indians. Commissions were sent to propitiate them, || smooth over the difficulties, and arrange for a meeting of chiefs with the authorities at Pitts- burgh. In the meantime the panic subsided a little, and some of the settlers returned to their homes to prepare and plant ·their crops.

In Crawford's letter of the 13th of May, he says, "Several of the inhabitants of that part (Wheelng) are gone back and are planting their corn.

"David Sheppard, who lives down at Wheeling, moved his family up to my house, but he has gone back himself, and is planting his corn."a

The meeting at Fort Pitt was attended by a few Delawares and Senecas, who professed a desire for peace, but the Shaw- anese and Mingoes did not vouchsafe an appearance, and the wrath of Logan would not be assuaged until he had glutted his vengeance, and appeased the manes of his slaughtered kin- dred by a hecatomb of victims.b

Such were the precursory events of the Dunmore war, whose full details are narrated in a subsequent chapter. The fire, now smouldering, was soon to burst forth in crimson flames along the whole border, only to be quenched in blood.

APPENDIX A.

AN EARLY ACCOUNT OF THE OUTRAGES.

The following document is an account of some of these out- rages published in Philadelphia soon after the scenes were en-

*see Redstone letter, Appendix C and E. ¡See Appendix F.

ĮWashington-Crawford letters.

aWashington-Crawfords Letters.

¿Washington-Crawford letters.

|| McKee's Journal, Appendix D, and Wash- ington-Crawford letters.

bLetter of Devereux Smith-Appendix E.

acted, and seems to have a more special bearing on the murder of the two Indians in the canoe above Wheeling than any statement we have seen :

"PHILADELPHIA, May 23, 1774.

"By intelligence from Pittsburgh of the 1st of May, we learn that about the 26th of April, as one Stevens with two Indians (a Shawanese and a Delaware), were going down the Ohio in a canoe (that had been a few days before robbed by three men and a woman of the Cherokee nation, after they had killed one white man and wounded another), he diseovered a canoe with people near Whaling, coming up the river, which he suspected to be Indians, and strove to avoid them by making to the oppo- site shore, when they were fired upon twiee, and the two Indians in his canoe killed; but he could not perceive who it was that fired, as the enemy lay concealed in the bushes. He then threw himself into the river, and observed the eanoe that was coming up to contain white men. He made towards it, and found therein Col. Michael Cresap and some other men, who pretended entire ignorance of his misfortune, although he, the said Stephens, declares that, from several circumstances, he suspects the murder was committed by persons in confederacy with Cresap, as he had heard him threaten to put every Indian to death he should meet with on the river; and that if he could get a number of men together sufficient for the undertaking he was determined to mark a small Indian village on Yellow creek.

"We also learn that Major Macdonald, of Virginia, on his return to Pittsburgh from the Big Kanawha, gives account that a skirmish had happened between some Virginians and In- dians, in which some were killed on both sides, which had occasioned the surveyor's and grantees of land from that colony to return; and that on his way to Pittsburgh, on the 27th of April, he stopped at the house of Colonel Cresap, near Whal- ing, where one Mahon came and informed him that fourteen Indians, in five canoes, had called at his house going down the river, and asked him for provisions, which he refused, telling them that two of their brethren, the day before, had been killed by the white people, which these Indians heard nothing of be- fore, and proceeded down the river. That upon this news, Cresap collected fifteen men, followed and overtook them at the mouth of a small creek, where they had hauled up the canoes, and were waiting with expectation of being attacked as a conse- quence of what they had heard. That Cresap, spying the eanoes, fired among them, upon which a skirmish ensued, and the Indians retired, after the loss of one man on each side, and left in the eanoes sixteen kegs of rum, and some saddles and bridles.

"Captain Crawford and Mr. Neville, of Virginia, from Pitts- burgh, informed us that about the 3d instant, on their way there, they met a number of inhabitants moving off their places, and with them a party who produced several Indian scalps, and said they got them as follows: 'That a number of Indians eneamped at the mouth of Yellow ereek, opposite to which two men named Greathouse and Baker, with some others, had assembled themselves, at a house belonging to the said Baker, and invited two men and two women of the Indians over the river to drink with them, when, after making them drunk, they killed and sealped them; and two more Indian men came over, who met with the like fate. After which six of their men eame over to seek their friends, and on approaching the bank where the white men lay concealed, perceived them and endeavored to retreat baek, but received a fire from the shore, which killed two Indians, who fell in the river; two fell dead in the eanoe, and a fifth was so badly wounded that he could hardly crawl up the bank.' Among the unfortunate sufferers was an Indian woman, wife of a white man, one of the traders; and she had an infant at her breast, which these inhuman butchers providentially spared and took with them. Mr. Ne- ville asked the man who had the infant if he was not near enough to have taken its mother prisoner without killing her? He replied that he was about six feet from her when he shot her exactly in the forehead, and cut the hoppase with which the child's cradle hung at her back; and he thought to have knocked out its brains, but remorse prevented him, on seeing the child fall with its mother .* This party further informed them that after they had killed these Indians they ran off with their families, and that they thought the whole country was fled, as Cresap, who was the perpetrator of the first offence, was then also on his way to Redstone."

*This woman was Logan's sister. The child 'was afterwards taken to the house of William Crawford. See Washington-Crawford letters.

HISTORY OF BELMONT AND JEFFERSON COUNTIES, OHIO.

APPENDIX B.

A PERSONAL RECOLLECTION OF THE YELLOW CREEK MASSACRE.

The following statement of the murder of Logan's family and the other Indians at the mouth of Yellow ereek, is a personal recollection from the pen of Judge Jolley, who was for many years a resident of Washington county, Ohio, and who saw the Greathouse party the day after the unfortunate affair. It was first published in Silliman's journal in 1836:

"I was about sixteen years of age, but I very well recolleet what I then saw, and the information that I have since ob- tained, was derived from (I believe) good authority. In the spring of the year 1774, a party of Indians encamped on the northwest of the Ohio, near the mouth of the Yellow creek. A party of whites, called 'Greathouse's party,' lay on the opposite side of the river. The Indians came over to the white party, consisting, I think, of five men and one woman, with an in- fant. The whites,gave them rum, which three of them drank, and in a short time they became very drunk. The other two men and the woman refused to drink. The sober Indians were challenged to shoot at a mark, to which they agreed; and as soon as they emptied their guns, the whites shot them down. The woman attempted to escape by flight, but was also shot down ; she lived long enough, however, to beg mercy for her babe, telling them that it was a kin to themselves. The whites had a man in the cabin, prepared with a tomahawk for the pur- pose of killing the three drunken Indians, which was imme- diately done. The party of mnen then moved off for the in- terior settlements, and came to 'Catfish camp' on the evening of the next day where they tarried until the day following. I very well recollect my mother feeding and dressing the babe; chirruping to the little innocent, and its smiling.

However, they took it away, and talked of sending it to its supposed father, Col. George Gibson, of Carlisle, Pa., who was then, and had been for many years, a trader among the Indians.' The remainder of the party at the mouth of Yellow creek, find- ing that their friends on the opposite side of the river were massacred, attempted to escape by descending the Ohio; and, in order to prevent being discovered by the whites, passed on the west side of Wheeling Island and landed at Pipe creek, a small stream that empties into the Ohio a few miles below Grave creek, where they were overtaken by Cresap with a party of men from Wheeling .* They took one Indian scalp, and had one white man (Big Tarrener) badly wounded. They, I believe, carried him in a litter from Wheeling to Redstone. I saw the party on their return from their victorious campaign. The Indians had for some time before these events thought them- selves intruded upon by the 'Long Knife,' as they at that time called the Virginians, and many of them were for war.

"However, they called a council, in which Logan acted a con- spicuous part. He admitted their grounds of complaint, but at the same time reminded them of some aggressions on the part of the Indians, and that by a war they could but harrass and distress the frontier settlements for a short time; that the "Long Knife" would come like the trees in the woods, and that ultimately they should be driven from the good lands which they now possessed. He therefore strongly recommended peace. To him they all agreed; grounded the hatchet, and everything wore a tranquil appearance, when behold the fugitives arrived from Yellow creek, and reported that Logan's father, brother and sister were murdered! Three of the nearest and dearest relations of Logan had been massacred by white men. The consequence was, that this same Logan, who a few days before was so pacific, raised the hatchet with a declaration that he would not ground it until he had taken ten for one, which I be- lieve he completely fulfilled, by taking thirty scalps and prison- ers in the summer of 1774. The above has often been related to me by several persons who were at the Indian towns at the time of the council alluded to, and also when the remains of the party came in from Yellow creek. Thomas Nicholson in particular, has told me the above and much more. Another person (whose name I cannot recollect) informed me that he was at the towns when the Yellow creek Indians came in, and that there was great lamentations by all the Indians of that place. Some friendly Indians advised him to leave the Indian settlements, which he did. Coukl any rational person believe

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History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, and incidentially historical collection pertaining to border warfare and the early settlement of the adjacent portion of the Ohio Valley, Part 23

Author: Caldwell, J. A. (John Alexander) 1n; Newton, J. H., ed; Ohio Genealogical Society. 1n Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Wheeling, W. Va. : Historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 728

Author: Caldwell, J. A. (John Alexander) 1n; Newton, J. H., ed; Ohio Genealogical Society. 1n
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Wheeling, W. Va. : Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 728